Prefers Inner Jogging

MUM SENT ME GROCERIES.



I love her. She knows of my passion for bagelfuls!

(I would like to say that while I love brie, the "brie log" is ill-concieved. Too much rind. It's not bad, and it's convenient for cracker snacking, but you're better off buying a wheel.)

In the insanity of this morning, and of learning how to make ebooks (my curve is steep!) I almost forgot to tell the best story of my day.

Yesterday we got a flyer about a special deal that a few downtown hotels are offering to employees of downtown businesses. It was a little bit vague on the details, so I called the central number and asked a few questions. The woman I spoke to was SO PLEASED I was going to spread the word that she took down my name, company, and email address.

Cue an hour later, a rep from the hotel company shows up at the office and brings me a bag of candy and a GIFT CERTIFICATE for a free night's stay at one of the hotels, as a thank-you.

IT'S STAYCATION TIME.

I am upright! And coherent!

Okay, semi-coherent. But coherent enough to complete all my work tasks with a minimum of bewildered weeping.

Actually I have some very exciting stuff to share with you this morning.

First, 51stcenturyfox gave me a lovely early Christmas present -- www.extribulum.com. It's my very own domain name! Which is good 'cause damned if I know how to set stuff like that up. :D

Right now it redirects to my Lulu storefront, but I hope to badass up a website sooner or later. Thank you very much, Foxy! (She also wrote me a lovely poem about it.)

And, if you visit www.extribulum.com (link your friends! :D) you will notice that Nameless is now listed twice -- once at the top of the page and once at the bottom. This is because shezan poked me into action and Lulu provided the means to create an ePub file of Nameless. Yep -- you can now download Nameless, the e-book, and load it into the ePub reader of your choice.

Because a lot of people who have bought the book or downloaded the PDF would like it as an ePub, it seems a bit unfair to charge for it right off. The ebook will be free until the end of the month, at which point I'll raise the price to $3 (about $1.80 of that is profit; for some reason you can give the thing away, but if you charge for it Lulu takes a fair-sized chunk).

You guys will have to let me know how it looks, 'cause the Calibri e-reader's kind of buggy and tends to make random sentences disappear until you resize the screen, at which point it makes other random sentences disappear. :D

So to kickstart my writing, which has been nonexistent since mid-November-ish, I tried to do that "ten songs/ten ficlets" thing again. It was...partly successful.

Sometime Around Midnight
Dark Angel; Max/Alec; pg; 310 words
Since he can't get drunk, there's only one way to forget.

( and all of these memories come rushing / like feral waves to your mind / of the curl of your bodies / like two perfect circles entwined )

~*~

Feedback is adored.

~*~

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I meant to mention this the other night about last week's Bones. ( spoiler )

Tonight's Big Bang Theory was pure comedy gold. ( spoilers )

***

225 words on yuletide. At some point I will break through and hit 1000 and then it's all downhill from there. Hopefully that point is sometime before this weekend, or I will have to stab myself in the face. Sigh.

***

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I haven't done the last few love memes that went around, but here I am in this year's holiday love meme.

Now to go through and leave some love of my own. Um. In a totally hygienic way. ♥

***

So last night I was making this orange-cranberry loaf, and as I put the pan into the oven, I looked up and saw the box of sugar sitting on the counter and I thought, Oh, shit, I didn't put the sugar in the batter. So I pulled the pan out of the oven and stirred the sugar directly into the batter. It turned out fine. I had it for breakfast this morning. But wow, talk about senior moments. Eek!

***

210 words on yuletide! I don't know that they are good words, but...words, I has them! Talking it out with fleurdeleo last night over dinner clarified some of the issues I was having - all tell and no show, basically - and hopefully now that I am working on fixing that (after I scrapped three separate opening paragraphs), the rest of the story will follow.

*crosses fingers*

***

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I am home from the clinic! (for those of you reading on IJ and JF mirrors, I have a sprained/possibly torn MCL. No breaks!)

I'm to ice and elevate today. I got a prescription for vicodin and didn't check it before I filled it -- holy crap he gave me 30 500-mg tablets. So I'm taking half-tablets, which should be more than enough.

You can tell I was a little bit high when I filled the prescription. I bought vicodin, Calcium tablets (I was almost out), a spare Ace bandage, a toothbrush, two Snickers bars, and a jar of jam. I don't even remember buying the jar of jam.

I can't recommend Michigan Avenue Immediate Care highly enough, for those in Chicago who don't have a doctor or need to see a doctor NOW but don't want to go to the ER. I was seen within half an hour, they charge on a sliding scale so you can generally get fairly cheap medical care if you don't have insurance, and they have really nice doctors.

I did have to do the Walk Of Shame in my pyjamas, but that's why I wore pyjamas instead of just jeans, so I didn't have to keep taking off my pants; I could just wear my pjs and roll up the cuff. Undressing and taking off my shoes are the hardest thing right now.

I am going to go sit down forever.

Ugh. It was bad enough that I had to root for Philip Rivers today. Now the Giants are FAILLING (yes they fail so hard they get two Ls) against the Eagles. How is their tackling so bad? HOW? And how is their offensive play-calling so useless? And how come their receivers can make these huge plays one minute, and can't even hold onto the ball the next? Otoh, Eli can do these smart, smart things, and Bradshaw and Jacobs can make these runs but can't get out of bounds to stop the clock. Jesus. The agita is killing me.

***

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I AM HOME. The shuttle took FOREVER because he decided to drive up Halsted. WHY? WHY NOT!

I am sitting in bed with my leg up on a pillow and an ice pack on it. Is anyone shocked I keep ice packs in the freezer for moments like this? Me neither.

The full story is, this morning I was going to walk my hosts' dog, because he loves me best and despite fearing the rain might actually pee if I walk him in it. So I was standing on the steps to their mud-room, and my host said, very clearly, "Be careful! The tile is slippery!"

"I will be extra-super-careful," I said, or words to that effect, and then put my foot down on the tile and tumbled headfirst to the ground.

I tried. I really did.

I'm sure the fall sounded worse than it was, considering I took a hall table with me and nearly took the dog out in the process. I'm sure I traumatised the poor dog, and probably my hosts as well. I felt ok at the time, so I picked myself up, walked the dog, carried my bag to the car, and went to the airport. I got on the plane, got a seat where I could elevate my leg, asked the flight attendant for an ice pack (btw, Southwest flight attendants are the coolest MacGyvers ever) and spent the entire two-hour flight elevating and icing in fifteen-minute increments.

When it came time to get off the plane, my knee felt...funny. And then it hurt. So I caught a shuttle home, yay door-to-door service, and put in a sick-call to work via email for tomorrow. I'd go to the ER tonight but I'd just sit there in uncomfortable dirty chairs for hours on end, when I could get a good night's sleep and go to the nice Immediate Care clinic tomorrow morning. I trust them more; they're the ones who had me see a specialist for my wrist after sending me off with a splint, when they didn't even have to call me again.

Dad Lucky thinks that it's either a really bad sprain or a fracture in the head of the tibia.

If my leg is broken again I'm going to laugh and weep simultaneously, just to scare the Immediate Care people. My New Year's Resolution was not to break any bones in 2010.

On the upside, I wrote 1000 words tonight, for the first time in about two weeks.

On the downside, none of those words were on my yuletide story. Sigh.

I think I have to rethink the way I'm telling the story - I think the idea is sound, but I'm just not coming at it from the right direction. Or something. I thought about it while I was highlighting my hair (I miss the old Feria highlights I used to use. It makes me sad they don't make that anymore. This other stuff - Highlight Styliste - is... I like the color, but the coverage is difficult, and not just because I have more grey than I used to - it doesn't coat evenly! I don't like the whole powder thing. I liked it better when it was mixing one liquid into another. It just worked better. Sigh. I hate change. [/tan]) and I think I have to skip the exposition and just jump right in. Or something. I don't know! It's so inert right now, and if there's one thing this source is not, it's inert. It's an assignment that is a perfect match for me, and yet I can't get out of the gate. It's making me a little crazy, to be honest.

I am going to bed now, but I guess I will be back at it again tomorrow. From a slightly different angle. Or something.

***

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Things I have done today:

• made nutella cupcakes
  
  • can I just say that I find cupcakes intimidating? You can only fill them 3/4 of the way or they overflow! They have to be carefully removed from the muffin tin rather than just turned out like a cake! And this batter was kind of sticky and not pourable, so I had to spoon it into the cups. And then swirl the nutella in. Which... okay, I only had one mess-up, but still. It was only after I had them in the oven that my parents called and my dad mentioned using an ice cream scoop to keep the portions uniform and my mother suggested greasing it so the batter released easily. Why did I not think of that? Anyway. The cupcakes are good, if a little sweet for my taste, but I think for Christmas I will make it as a cake.


• dropped off way too much laundry for washing


• read fic

Things I should do today:

• Finish non-baking Christmas shopping


• write yuletide. YULETIDE! YULETIDE!


• start cleaning out closet and/or bookshelves

Things I should not be doing today and yet apparently am:

• playing bubbleshooter


• Reading this week's EW


• reading the latest comments on the return of Victoria Bitter wank.
  
  • this is the wank that keeps on giving, guys. It would have been hilarious enough if it had just included the false assertions of being an IRA member and the pseudicide, but the fact that it is also the return of VB makes it completely epic. It is the perfect wank for the holiday season, as it is apparently the wank that keeps on giving.


• downloading the episodes of Being Human that I haven't seen.

Things I someday would like to watch, possibly when YULETIDE is written:

• Mad Men


• Being Human


• the seasons 1 and 2 episodes of Psych I haven't seen (which is most of them)


• Slings and Arrows (Dude, I have the dvds, and yet they sit, unwatched. sigh.)

Things I would like to do a full rewatch of (sooner rather than later):

• The Wire


• Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel


• Middleman


• Firefly


• West Wing


• Homicide


• Sports Night


• Gilmore Girls (seasons 1-4 only)


• Battlestar Galactica


• Northern Exposure

Jesus, that is a lot of tv. Why do I have to work again?

Now, I must write!

*opens Write or Die*

***

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I gave up on work about 3:45 this afternoon and spent my last 75 minutes redoing the food tags on my delicious, so now they are more specific and I can more easily find what I'm looking for. (Oddly enough, I don't have near the same problem finding stories with non-specific tags - I'm not sure why that is.)

So tonight I baked this raspberry buttermilk cake from smitten kitchen, and dear god, it is tasty. It took about ten minutes longer in the oven than the recipe says, but that's because I baked it in an 8" round instead of a 9". SO SO TASTY OMG! Maybe next time I will skip the raspberries and do lemon flavoring. Or orange. I don't know, but it's a good, tasty, easy cake that tastes really good. I don't think it'll be included in the Christmas baking, but I can definitely see making it on a Sunday night for breakfast for a few days.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt self-frosting nutella cupcakes, and if they come out as awesome as they look on that page, I will probably make a bunch for Mary and Sal for Christmas.

Mmm...baking...

Before I baked, I watched this week's Friday Night Lights. I thought I was going to make it through without crying for once, but then ( spoilers )

I probably should attempt to write, but I think I am going to go put the flannel sheets on the bed and then crawl into it.

***

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Good lord, I tried to do a spot of online Christmas shopping, since Boss 1 is gone for the day and Boss 2 is in a three hour conference call, and the phones will not stop ringing! And when the phones aren't ringing, people are stopping by! WTF? It's Friday! Give me fifteen minutes of peace so I can order some gifts! *rant about international shipping and the lack thereof from some sites redacted*

Speaking of Christmas, I don't send holiday cards anymore - I got out of the habit and never got back into it, so I never put my name in anymore for people to send me cards, since I feel bad that I don't reciprocate. I do love receiving cards, though, so thank you so much to rei_c for the lovely card! First one of the season! *hearts*

***

Last night, mosca posted a poem in breathe_poetry that I really liked (Different Uses for Windows by Arlene Ang), and included a link to H_NGM_N, the literary journal in which it appears, so of course I had to go over there and poke around.

I found this poem:

Fifteen Beautiful Colors
by Erica Bernheim

I. Four mornings in a row of dawns, reversed sunsets, greasepaint reflections of peril heightened.



II. Ash, scattered, tastes of care and warns of inter-mural collisions. Expected, their flat hues.



III. Speaker, formulaic, blends all domestics into hard-won remainders like salt and rock salt.



IV. Lights at their brightest are the first to be extinguished. Six tickets rigged. Stained clandestine yellow.



V. Signals, misfired. Cornflower becomes alabaster, what voices scrape the self-professed neutron into action.



VI. Sweets, water, rested and longing for motion, the completion of the voiced projections: picture, abandon.



VII. My love, this journey and you have worn me like a jacket, like bluish seams erased and easily worn out.



VIII. Comfortable lead, pulling from center together, narrow as spit rope. Forty bowls, none glass.



IX. No one cares for the plights of the professionals, their amber sweat, their safety is what this does for you.



X. This is what the conversation looks like when no one wants to have it. Someone keeps score in red.



XI. Dead pull hitter. No trigger. Even the handle has been sold. What remains, iron.



XII. Two arms reaching make little sound grasps at smoke. Nothing here will bloom or rise, planetary faces.



XIII. Ball into glove is to tincture as impact was to need. Precious intensity wheedles its own sins.



XIV. Fine and ground to pieces no bigger than the heart of palm that holds yours. Waves out, be mine.



XV. What is this moon but silver ending, this flesh but nothing, this lamp, this stiff night.

~*~

I liked the first poem on the page well enough to scroll down and keep reading this one, and I liked it too, even though it didn't really ping me. Interesting use of language, and the first sentence of IV is well put, but nothing to really jolt me until I hit this:

VII. My love, this journey and you have worn me like a jacket, like bluish seams erased and easily worn out.

How perfect is that? It packs a whole relationship into one line, twenty words long, nothing tricky about it, deceptively simple. You know exactly what kind of jacket she's talking about, and exactly what the narrator feels like. This is why I love poetry and why I wish I could write like a poet. (It also doesn't hurt that it makes me think of Sam and Dean. Shut up.)

And X. reminds of fandom. Sigh.

***

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In the insanity of the last few days, I've been remiss in not sharing with you a new triumph for Nameless!

A few months ago, I was approached by Rebecca, a reviewer for Voice of Youth Advocates, which is a library journal targeted at librarians and teachers serving teenagers in a literary capacity. Although VOYA does not ordinarily review self-published books, Rebecca thought they would be interested in Nameless because of the process of its creation, and they agreed to publish a review in the December issue of the journal. VOYA is also tentatively set to run an article about Nameless which I believe will be in April's issue.

I received the review a few days ago and was really pleased with it. Rebecca submitted a long review and two teen reviewers, Alisa and Julia, also submitted shorter reviews. They're all positive about the writing, which is always nice, but also conscious of the book's flaws, which I appreciated. (Julia, in particular, hit the nail on the head with her assessment of my fear of conflict in writing, and Alisa and Rebecca both commented on the rather leisurely pace of the thing. :D)

It's late tonight and I'm traveling tomorrow -- I'll be out of town this weekend, though I'll have the netbook -- so I'm going to pull some quotes later to add to the brag post, and I'll link when I do so. If you have access to VOYA, which is a great resource in general, check out page 424 of the December issue to find the reviews.

As a little PR reminder, you can always find Nameless (and my other self-published books) in the links on the right sidebar of my journal, and digital PDF downloads of the book are still completely free.

I FEEL LIKE A GROWNUP WRITER OMG.

Thank you to pinkfinity and regala_electra for the lovely v-gifts.

♥

*

\o/

Three sets of minutes done! Well, not done-done, because they still have to be reviewed/revised etc. but the hardest part is done and the first drafts are now in the hands of the appropriate staff members for editing. Woo!

*

Apparently I'm now famous in fleurdeleo's office because I gave her half the baked goods I made last weekend and she brought them into work and they were a big hit.

I brought in the cheesecake to my office today for the potluck luncheon (which is in lieu of a holiday party? I don't even know), and the funny thing is, yesterday, a number of people asked me if I were bringing something in today - I guess the blueberry cake and the banana cake made an impression. Heh. Winning the world over with baked goods - a sound strategy.

The people I sat with during the luncheon liked the cake, so that was a winner. Someone actually asked me if I ever made grain pie, and I was able to say I have, and then someone else recommended Veniero's grain pie, which recommendation I totally seconded.

I'm full of a lot of food - there was pulled pork and brisket and ribs and pierogies and chicken with string beans (too spicy!) and mac and cheese and a dozen other things I didn't even get to because I was so full with what was on my plate. Boss 2 made pineapple rum punch and I had a half a glass of that as well. And for dessert, a piece of cheesecake (I made it! I had to taste it!*), a chocolate mini-cupcake, a bite of apple crisp, and a half slice of flan. Everything was very good, but I totally want to curl up and go to sleep now.

FOOOOOOD COMAAAAAAAA.

So I mentioned that I decided I would bake for Christmas gifts for the adults in the family - there are four couples I usually buy for, and this seems like a cheaper, more personal gift (and also easier than trying to figure out what to get them either as individuals or couples). Of course, I had to listen to a harangue from my dad about it, as he mansplained why he thought I shouldn't do it, and just buy gift cards instead (is there a special subcategory for dadsplaining? because I think he does it to my brother, too). I was like, I'm not twelve years old and I have thought it through and it's totally workable, especially if I do most of the baking in their somewhat larger and more counter-space-having kitchen (plus! an industrial size KitchenAid stand mixer! Woo! *is mad jealous of that*). So we had one of those "I'm at work and can't yell at you like I'd like to so I'll speak in furious hushed tones on the phone" arguments the other day and the upshot is that I am baking for Christmas, but I am also taking an extra day off to do so (my boss was all, "that's fine - nothing is going on 12/23 anyway").

I won't even go into the way my mother makes me crazy sometimes, and specifically how she did so yesterday, because arrgh!

*deep calming breaths*

I love my parents, but dear god, the can be infuriating sometimes.

ANYWAY. I ordered a springform pan to be sent to their house since they don't have one and I don't want to lug mine from home, and I also ordered these star-shaped bake and give paper pans from King Arthur Flour. Anyone ever use them? It seems like a great idea, but do they really hold up in the oven? I guess I will find out. I don't think they're good for cheesecake though, hence the springform.

I also took care of my nieces' gifts yesterday - the boys just get Best Buy gift certificates these days - so I feel much more on top of things than I did earlier. Heh. I love Christmas shopping and I'm good at picking out gifts for people, but the past few years have been harder - I don't seem to get much in the way of Christmas spirit until it's much later than is wise to start shopping. Doing a lot online helps, and walking past the trees being sold on the sidewalk always perks me up, but still, I miss being more excited about the holidays.

So I was thinking of redoing my delicious tags regarding food - right now that's the only tag I use for anything food-related. When I started, I didn't think there would be much - the online menus of a couple of restaurants I order from, some food-related gift ideas, and that's it - but clearly there is more than that. I bookmark more recipes these days than stories (which is a whole other rant I won't subject you to), so I am thinking I should maybe differentiate a little to make things easier to find. Maybe food: recipes: [type of recipe, i.e., meat, pasta, dessert, etc.], food: information, food: menus? Hmmm...

I wrote most of this post earlier, before the luncheon and now I am too brain dead to remember if there was anything else I wanted to say, so I'll just hit post.

--
*I don't taste the things I don't like to eat, even when I've cooked them myself - I am a very finicky, unadventurous eater. When I used to cook regularly for the family I often made things I don't eat, but I wouldn't have brought something like that in for strangers, anyway.

***

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So, it's something like nineteen degrees below zero in Chicago this morning.

Okay, it's 4 degrees above, that extra 23 degree drop is for wind chill, but I'd like you to stop and think about the kind of wind that causes a 23-degree drop in temperature. And then imagine me walking in it, and you will understand that I am not delirious or surrealist when I make the following statement:

My house keys froze to the inside of my jacket pocket this morning.

I'm not particularly fussed by the cold, except when my belongings freeze together. Today does present some obstacles, namely that everyone who could call in sick did so. BossBoss, Coworker Fail, and three department heads are all mysteriously missing, which means basically I'm running the place. The down-side to this is that anyone who could provide lunch support, or who could concievably notice that I don't have lunch support, is gone.

It's going to be a long day.

My hair is thick and knots if you look at it funny, so for years I've used a detangler or leave-in conditioner - usually Infusium 23. I ran out and they didn't have any in the CVS in my neighborhood, so I bought this L'Oreal leave-in conditioner gel, and it says on the bottle that it smells like rosemary and mint.

Maybe in BIZARRO WORLD.

It smells more like the backseat of a Cutlass owned by a guy named Joey Bones in 1986. After it's been locked up tight on a 90° day. Ugh. Works really well, but makes my hands stink of nothing that resembles rosemary, mint or any combination of the two. Sigh.

I'll use it, I suppose, but I am going back to Infusium after this. It doesn't have a horrible smell.

*

So my LJ comments have started slowly trickling in. Yay? I'm glad I didn't post any fic during this time of no notifications.

I made a cheesecake tonight to take to work tomorrow. Hopefully it came out as good as the one I made Saturday. It looks good and smells good. Sadly, my oven was not big enough for me to put the cake pan in a hot water bath, so the top cracked. (The largest pan my oven fits is a 9x13", but a 9" springform does not fit in that.)

Then I watched Criminal Minds. ( spoilers )

Then I watched Glee. I tried to dl some of the songs from tonight, but iTunes tells me something is being modified and therefore I cannot. But I really liked ( song spoilers )

*

I'm done with two sets of minutes and 3/4 of the way through the last set, and then hopefully I can actually do some work on my yuletide story at work. That would be good. I still have the same 73 words I had on Saturday. Sigh. I used to be good at this writing thing. What the hell happened? Possibly baking is my new fandom? I was an enthusiastic baker when I was younger and I've enjoyed rediscovering it, and I am more squeeful about it than I am about fandom these days. Hmm...

Speaking of which, I need to go unfrock my cheesecake, and then I am going to bed.

*

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I was going to do the "If I came with a warning label, what would it say?" meme that's been going around, but I'm pretty sure "HEALTH HAZARD" covers it. :D Possibly "Contents Under Pressure".

I have been adjusted and massaged and manipulated, and apparently my ass is literally too tense. They kept poking it. IT'S MY ASS, STOP POKING IT.

In happier news, celestialsoda made me an OMG AWESOME drawing of a maskmaker's self-portrait. It's all sepia and Leonardo Da Vinci! And he's sculpting in a mirror!

I forgot I have to go to the chiropractor tonight at 5:30. On the one hand, yay theraputic massage. On the other hand, it's supposed to storm and I won't be getting home until 7:30 at the earliest. And then there's the eternal question: do I eat before I go, or wait till I get home?

Also, as it is approaching finals season, and Stressed Out Season, and all the rest, a reminder: deleting_my_lj. If you're going to delete temporarily, please post first! It saves us all a lot of worry and scrambling to find copies of your fic.

I had other things to post about but now I don't remember what they were. It's been that kind of day.

Still no comment notifications (even recent comments is running slow), but I am neck deep in minutes, and need some entertainment, so, a meme, gacked from cereta:

If I came with a warning label, what would it say?

***

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